_
_
_
There’s something about Disneyland, from the moment you enter you feel the magic! Some might think that Disney’s Parks are just for kids, but it is not. The park is filled with great food, fantastic entertainment, and fun rides.In this post I’ll cover ticket prices, how to get there, the hotels, opening hours, the app, free and paid Fastpasses, hidden gems, pins, rides, characters, and how to prepare for your Disney vacation.
1-day tickets for the Disneyland park 137$ for both of us. We got tickets for MiniMagic, which means during the week, not weekends. We always prefer to go on a weekday since the weekends and holidays get so crazy, and it’s hard to enjoy that way. We also tend to buy the tickets on the official pages that way, you don't have to wait in lines in the morning and convert the tickets you have to Disney tickets.
Check the hours on the Disney site because they change, but you should know something about all Disney parks - They open the area of downtown Disney until the castle half an hour before written on the official site!!! So if the site says the park opens at 10 am, it's best to get there at around 9-9:15, so you could enjoy, take some photos and get in line for the opening at 9:30! Everyone gets in line so they can rope drop to their favorite rides, such as Peter Pan (which could reach up to 100 min wait), Hyperspace mountain, or meet Mickey Mouse. Don't forget to take a map of the park! The map has the hours If you don't feel like running to the rides, take advantage of the empty castle and take some beautiful photos.
Next to a few rides, there are Fastpass machines. You put your entrance ticket with the bar code into the machine and get a Fastpass. The Fastpass has a window of half an hour where you need to come back to the ride and go to the Fastpass line. It's very important to get fast passes for the busiest rides in order not to waste your day waiting in line. List of rides with Fastpass: Big Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, Peter Pan's Flight, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, Star Tours: The Adventure Continues & Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain The busiest rides are: Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan & Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain.
There are FastPass options that you could buy. They are not included in the admission tickets.
There are four options:
Super Fastpass:
This past has 2 options you can choose from:
• For 40€ you can get on three rides- Ratatouille in Disney studios park, Peter Pan & Buzz Lightyear.
•For 40€ you can get on three rides - Star Wars Hyperspace, Tower of Terror in Disney studios park & Rock n' Roll ride in Disney Studios park.
Ultimate Fastpass:
This past has 2 options you can choose from:
• For 80€ you could get a ONE-time Fastpass for- Big Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, Peter Pan's Flight, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, Star Tours: The Adventure Continues, Star Wars hyperspace mountain & in Disney studios - Ratatouille, Tower of Terror & Rock n' Roll.
• For 132€ you could go on all the rides I mentioned before an unlimited amount of times. In my opinion, this option is not worth it since you could always get a regular Fastpass for those rides once you have done them once, and you could also go into the single-rider lane.
When purchasing a night, it includes:
• Admission ticket to the park
• Breakfast
• The location is right on site! Which saves you time in the morning standing in line.
• You get to use Morning Extra Magic Hours; You can enter the park 2 hours before opening hours and enjoy most of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland attractions, as well as character greetings on Main Street.
All Disneyland Hotel guests get a single-use Hotel FASTPASS for each day of their stay. You get a Fastpass to use any time of the day to any ride of your choosing per day in the hotel.
The best way to get there is to take the RER A train. It takes about a 40-50 minute ride it's a very comfortable way to get to the park just check and see which station is closest to your hotel. Our hotel was closest to the Chatelet-Les Halles Station. In the morning, we woke up early and walked to the station. It was a beautiful walk, and we got to see Paris early morning without the crowds. When we got back to the station at 1 AM, we were in a pretty uncomfortable situation. We arrived, and the crowds all went to the exit, but Dan was thirsty, so we stopped at a machine and ended up kind of alone- when we looked for the exit, there were immigrants all over chasing girls and people were screaming it was pretty scary. My husband grabbed me and ordered an Uber. Just be careful when you leave the train just go with the crowd and exit as fast as possible. Important! To save time on the way back from Disneyland, get tickets for the way back too!!!
I always recommend downloading the Disney app before arriving at the parks. The apps have the hours for shows and hours for characters, it shows how long of a wait there is for the rides, and that way, it's easier to plan your magical day. Wifi- There is FREE Wi-Fi throughout the park. I didn't have a package, and I had wifi the whole day!
Minnie's ears were actually pretty cheap in Paris (As was the entrance to the park itself) It was 15€ as appose to the US, where it was 29$! Tip - If you're looking to save money, I would go and buy online. You could find Minnie ears on Etsy, Aliexpress, and Instagram there are plenty of people who actually make Minnie's ears. (My trick is I buy the Minnie ears in the Disney outlet stores for under 10$).
As always, I recommend buying cute Disney outfits and shirts on Aliexpress or any store since at the parks, everything is just so expensive. A t-shirt could cost around 30€.
At City hall (on your left when you enter the park), you could get different kinds of pins for occasions that you celebrate in the park, such as birthdays and anniversaries. These pins don't usually give you anything, but people around the park will congratulate you, and for my birthday in Disneyworld, I got a free coffee and Cinnabon from Starbucks in the park.
If you have a Chronic disease/disablitiy, you need to bring a note from your Doctor (GP) that states your name and disability in English. You will get a form to give the workers for each ride; they give you an hour to return, and then you ride without waiting. For more info, click here!
Unlike Disneyworld and Disneyland CA, you can go into the castle and explore the sleeping beauty story. Under the castle, there is a dragon. It's pretty cool check it out!
•If there's a particular character you want to meet, it is essential to check and see what hours they are working since some characters usually do early and also check where there's meeting point is. Check the hours on the app!
•Usually, meeting Mickey Mouse's wait time is 70 minutes and could get up to 100 minutes, so if it's important for you, I would get in line early in the morning or later in the evening.
•For those arriving at the park around Halloween- Mickey is standing near Phantom Manor dressed in a Haunted Mansion outfit since they just reopened Phantom Manor in Feb 2019. Check it out. Better than regular mickey and less of a wait!!!!! Just know - He's there only until 16:00, so make sure to get there before.
•Princess Pavilion - The spot for meeting the princess' is right next to It's a small world ride. Do know that the average wait time is 100 minutes!
•Starport - Next to Hyperspace mountain has Darth Vader it's about a 40-minute wait.
There were a few rides that surprised us! They were so much better than Disneyland California and Disneyworld. Such as Peter Pan, Pirates on the Caribbean & It's a small world. Phantom Manor was creepier in a good way & Hyperspace mountain was star wars themes and so epic! There were even a few loops, and it was just AWESOME! For you thrill-seekers, you're going to want to do it twice! We rank the rides from 1-5 and wrote estimated wait times for rides click here for more!
If you didn't know - Disney parks are expensive! Yes, Even the food. a tiny pizza, salad, drink and ice cream cost 16€ The food in the park disappointed us. In the US, food is a big part of the Disney experience. I read online that they have Dole Whip, but they don't. We looked! We were very frustrated since no one warned us that even though the park closes at 11:00 p.m., the stores and kiosks with food and snacks close at 20:00-21:00!!!! We found ourselves looking for food. It was very upsetting.
The park has coolers all around. Bring a water bottle and fill them up to save more money on buying water.
In the summer, the parade is at 17:30 but always check to see what time it is. Usually, our favorite spot is near Casey’s so we can see the castle behind while we watch the parade. But we arrived at 17:00, and all the good spots were taken, but we were still able to get a seat with no one behind us.
In the summer, the show is at 23:00 (the hour that it says the park closes) usually, in the other parks, we get a spot an hour before the show, but in Paris, we went around the castle area 3 hours before the light show and saw that people were already catching a spot! It was nuts. By this time, we had already done every single ride in the park, but we wanted to do a few for our second time, so we did a few rides and decided to catch a spot 1.5 hours before the show.
The show tends to get crowded. Everyone is taking photos and holding phones up above, and people shove. Some people come at night to the park just for the Illumination show since they are staying in a Disney hotel, and it's free entrance for them. That is why my tip is a good one- We learned that the best place to get is a spot where no one could be in front of you! This means you need a bar in front like one in the one near the Central Plaza plants.
After the Illumination show, everyone is running to get out of the park they are tired and want to return to the hotels... This is an opportunity to get fantastic photos of the castle at night when no one is around! No filter!!!